Thanks to...
29 June 2007
To bring people up to speed. The wedding will take place at 5:00pm on Friday in the Garden of Hanover International Bible Church. This translates to 1:00 am Saturday morning Aussie time. And we'll be back in Aussie land on the 8th of July. This will probably be the last you'll see from us for a bit.
Thanks again to all the people all around the world who have prayed for us emailed us over the last few months. For the advice and help you have offered. Thanks heaps to all people at HIBC for all the work they have put in organising the wedding and making it run smoothly. Thanks to Christine for being the best most beautiful girl in the world and for saying yes to marrying me.
Lastly thanks to my God and saviour Jesus for all that he done for the both of us. May our marriage be for his glory.
Wedding Vows
28 June 2007
I, Michael take you, Christine to be my wife. I promise by God's grace as He enables me to love you as Christ loved the Church, and to daily make sacrifices for you. I will put your needs before mine, and will consider you in all my decisions. I promise to care for you as I care for my own body. I will be considerate as I live with you, and give you honour as the weaker partner and an heir together with me of the gracious gift of life.
I will speak the truth to you in Love. I will encourage you and strengthen you in your walk with God. I will not let the sun go down on my anger, instead I will be gracious to you, tender hearted, forgiving you even as God has forgiven me. I will trust in the Lord with all my heart and not depend on my own understanding, I will acknowledge Him in everything, knowing that He will direct our paths. I will follow Him where ever he leads us, putting the extension of his kingdom before all worldly possessions and pleasures. I will be peaceful, content, and joyful in every situation we encounter knowing that He is at work for our good and that we can do all things through his strength.
I acknowledge before the Lord my continuous need for his grace in my inability to do all these things, and rely on him alone for the power I need to live in a Godly way as your husband.
tags christian, christine, wedding
Hannover in Germanland
Mark and Carmen arrived the other day for the wedding. So we all (including Dave) went to Hanover for the day.
Crazy bratwurst cooking dude... imagine if the gas tank on his back went BOOM...
Dave and I went and did some exploring of our own....
Town hall in Hanover. We climbed it. View was awesome.
Attempted artiness at the bombed out church that was never fixed.tags christine, linkage, pictures, travel
Picture leak...
tags christine, pictures, wedding
Mixed bag
27 June 2007
Christine and I went to the VW factory on Monday. Visiting the factory is probably more like visiting a theme park on the gold coast. There are rides and a number of attractions. touring through the factory watching the cars being put together. The best bit was probably getting to drive the VW Touareg Diesel V6 on the 4WD obstacle course.
As I wind down the last few days of singledom I thought I'd give you some more serious reflections on my time so far. Things are starting to get the business end of the wedding stuff, managing logistics and the like. I miss all my freinds back home more than I thought realized I would. It was great to have Dave arrive yesterday. Being a different country has also been more difficult than I anticipated and I've found the language barrier the most difficult part. It's made me realise how much I enjoy just chatting to people and saying g'day.
Having said that Germany is a very beautiful place and Christine and her parents have been wonderful hosts. I can especially recommend the bread here. I'll probably try and pop a couple more posts out before the big day.
Radical Reformission
23 June 2007
There aren't many books that I heartily recommend. There are even fewer that I can say I've read all of. That brings me to Driscoll's book. I reviewed his Confessions here.
This book I think better articulates Driscoll's mission and purpose. His other book while equally good was a more personal and humorous account of his journey from little known duder to big gun. This book however is a must read for pastors and those church leadership. For those who might dismiss Driscoll as another emerging* stooge would be most interested in his criticism of not only post modernity but aspects of emerging church movement in the US.
Driscoll a clearly gifted communicator taking complex ideologies explaining them in every day language with candor and laugh-out-loud humour. I loved this book and I'm convinced you'll love it to.
*If you pride yourself on "cultural engagement", "Gen Y" and being across the "emerging movement" and haven't read this book you have committed heinous sin.
tags christian, ministry, review
Germany is...
22 June 2007
...so far
- When you travel you are going fast… very fast. 160 clicks on the autobahn is slow and...
- ...they even ride their girly hybrid bikes fast.
- The roads are smooth.
- The trains are faster more efficient and smoother.
- Bikes rule over cars and pedestrians... and there are so many it's not funny.
- The bike paths and footpaths are as wide as the roads
- Petrol and diesel fuel is really expensive.
- So… almost every car is a diesel.
- and... all the cars are new.
- and... all the cars are small.
- Unsurprisingly nearly all the cars are European.
- All the houses are... German looking even the new ones.
- Most of these buildings have been round longer than any "old" building in Australia.
- The windows and doors are amazingly engineered and double glazed.
- There are wind farms everywhere.
- German is an angry sounding language
- Ich sprechen nieght deutsch.
- Streets looks like scenes from a postcard.
- Being the crazy Australian guy.
- Having to read blogger and gmail in German
I can't believe...
20 June 2007
This story made the Mockery*. I think my/our story is so much better. Anyway I'm safely in Germany.
*My speak for The Mercury.
tags christine, shameless self promotion, wedding
Singapore has free internet...
19 June 2007
And I bought my ethernet cable and power adapter. Someone is a clever cookie :)
And here are some pictures from the conference... more here.
I still have my 12 hour flight to Frankfurt later tonight.
Conferences and porn again
18 June 2007
I spent the weekend at a conference with a stack of other blokes and girls who work the same job as I do at Uni's around the country.
Greg Clarke lectured us over two sessions looking at culture and how to reach the current generation of University students. While Greg is an "academic" I was impressed with his level of knowledge about younger people especially the current generations. I'll blog about this some time soon.
The highlight for me was most definately a bloke from MTS head office came and spoke to us. It was a great and refreshing to hear him speak so bluntly and frankly. He was a tough blokey guy with a servant heart (reminded me of Mark Driscoll). These guys are a great example for young guys and we need more of then in ministry.
Mark B took us through some systematic theology on "light" and "sin" in the Bible before getting more practical on the last day. We talked about one of my pet hates. To his credit he asked us the hard questions. In a room full of MTS trainees there wasn't one who hadn't struggled or looked at Pornography before. It's a problem and a big one more about that later...
tags christian, friends, linkage, ministry, update
You could....
15 June 2007
Leave Christine lots of nice comments (here) and emails saying happy Christine day. Leave her lots of nice messages on Facebook.
Read a book on gender roles or visit one of these links...
here
here
here and here.
Anything to do with green is good.
You could do something vaguely American... like buy Oreos...
(I'm on a green couch with a green magazine and Oreos here)
Read or buy lots of books (especially by AW Pink).
Draw or paint something or at least pretend to be arty.
Celebrate Christine Day the best day of the year.
tags christine
Celebrate Christine Day
Today is Christine's birthday. So in celebration I give you... (cue music and drum roll) the inaugural Christine day. Christine day is dedicated to all things Christine. The aim of Christine day raise awareness of Christine while also celebrating her existence.
I want to invite and challenge bloggers around the globe to join with me in the celebration.
How will you celebrate? I want to see pictures, linkage, and crazy ideas. What will you do for Christine day?
tags christine
Oh the horror...
14 June 2007
Sydney has been nice. I've spent the last couple of days hanging at Moore College with Seumas and the Tassie boys and girls. It has been nice to sleep in a bit. I've been gathering lots of information on Uni Church up here and FOCUS like groups here.
Also if you haven't discovered Facebook yet I suggest you jump on board lest you miss the train (they have trains in Sydney). One reason is it's a great way to catch up with the Sydney Moore College dudes and dudettes.
But the horror I hear you ask? Well I discovered to my horror last night I have a 6 and-a-bit hour layover in Singapore on the way to Germany... (Pause) that's right 6 freakin' hours sitting in the airport. What should I do?
tags christian, christians i respect
Blogsphere links
11 June 2007
Craig always has something interesting to say.
Sherrin talks about Christ and Culture.
Gus (and also Shaun) always an amusing read. (Note the picture of downtown Burnie)
Bron talks about how she made a lush Chocolate Pudding.
David a bloke who runs a pretty big youth group up here in Sydney blogs about engaging with culture.
The Departed
10 June 2007
I'm off to Sydney tomorrow morning... my trip toward Germany begins now. Please keep me in your prayers it's going to be a very long but enjoyable ride.
It's a...?
09 June 2007
tags friends, pictures, shameless self promotion
What's he building in there?
08 June 2007
tags friends, pictures, shameless self promotion
If you love/hate myspace...
... you'll love my mate Mark's myspace video. It's very very funny (see here).
Winners are grinners
07 June 2007
My team the Jets won our netball final tonight. It was a great win against a team who have beaten us soundly before. In fact I didn't think we'd win the game. We're really starting to play really well as a team. I played only a couple of quarters as goal shooter but loved every second of it. We play in the semi finals (I think) next week. Unfortunately I'll be in Sydney so they'll have to do without me... I'm sooo pleased I think I'll be grinning for the rest of the this week at least.
tags friends, shameless self promotion
Should I.... ?
05 June 2007
... call A Current Affair (or another news organisation) and tip them off about the Mike Christine story?
tags blog, shameless self promotion
Prayers without Domino's
04 June 2007
Tonight we held our monthly prayer meeting for FOCUS at my house. I was encouraged by the great attendance of blokes. Unfortunately the ladies of FOCUS aren't as pumped for prayer as the blokes. Usually these sorts of events are all ladies and no blokes.
I'm hoping that Christine and I can do something to remedy this problem next semester. In other news I also managed to cook some edible food (a rarity for me) for the event. Notable by it's absence, was Domino's filth (I'm still recovering from the other night). Thanks to Tim for organising the prayer meeting and the fellas for coming.
tags christian, focus, friends, ministry, update
New Coffee joint in Hobart
I had a very nice coffee at Hobart newest cafe "Villino" in Criterion Street downtown.
Pop in and see Richard and his partner. Richard is a friend of Dave's (my brother) and a great bloke to boot. He also has a La Marzocco machine, acclaimed as one of the best coffee machines in the world.
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